Release notes for WeBWorK 2.19

This article is under construction. Use the information herein with caution until this message is removed.

Warning :

This page should be considered incomplete until the release of 2.19 has been announced

New WeBWorK Features

• The attempts table has been removed. Feedback for correct/incorrect answers is now associated directly with each answer blank.
• The PG editor now has an option to convert problems to PGML although conversion is not complete and needs further editing to get a functional problem. So use with care.
• The "Hmwk Sets Editor" has been renamed to "Sets Manager", and the "Classlist Editor" is now called "Accounts Manager".
• In the "Accounts Manager" all user aspects (including password and permission level) can now be set when a user is first created, and all user aspects can now be edited at once on the edit tab (there is not a separate password tab anymore).
• The "Report bugs" link now points to GitHub issues rather than bugzilla.
• The file manager has been updated with the following feaures:
  • Archiving and unarchiving now supports the .zip archive format.
  • Clicking on the edit link for a problem file (.pg) now opens that file in the problem editor.
  • The course.conf and simple.conf files are now truly not editable by users that do not have admin permissions.
• The "Instructor Tools" page has been redesigned.
  • There are new sort options on users and sets.
  • The user interface has been improved.
• The PGML lab problem has been redesigned.
  • All of the examples have been updated.
  • Now there are examples that include all PGML features.
  • The problem is now hosted on the local webwork server instead of the defunct Rochester webwork server, and so will always work.
• Two-factor authentication using an authenticator app is now available.
• The course that is used for Course Administration can now be customized. It is recommended that you change from the previously hard coded "admin" course to something of your choosing. Having the name of the admin course be publicly known is a security vulnerability.
• Changing tabs on an instructor course configuration page doesn't reload the page, and when the course configuration is saved the new settings take effect immediately without another page reload.

New PG Features and Improvements

• New PGML features
  • Tables - PGML A new syntax is added to create tables within PGML blocks using niceTables.pl. Also, the niceTables.pl macro is automatically loaded when using PGML.
  • Tags - PGML One can now add HTML div or a span tags within PGML with [< ... >].
• The contextBoolean.pl macro was added with a Boolean MathObject context which includes:
  • parsing of boolean expressions,
  • reduction rules with and's and or's
  • customizable true and false symbols and provision of unicode versions.
• Additional methods were added to Matrix MathObjects including:
  • the ability to create zero, permutation and elementary matrices
  • test for triangular, orthogonal, diagonal, symmetric matrices
  • test if matrices are in row echelon or reduced row-echelon forms.
• A general macro parserMultipleChoice.pl was added that loads all the multiple choice parsers: PopUp, CheckboxList, RadioButtons, RadioMultiAnswer
• Updated and fixed PGML horizontal rules. Rules - PGML
• Add the methods num and den to a fraction MathObject.
• Change the behavior of Compute. If Compute is called on a number, then a Real will now be created on that number. Before it was stringified and passed to Formula.
• Knowls have been reworked (again). Knowl links no longer attempt to open directly in the page. Instead they open in a modal dialog.
• There have been many accessibility improvements.

Deprecated Functionality

• All versions of the compound problem macro have been deprecated (compoundProblem.pl, compoundProblem2.pl, and compoundProblem5.pl). Problems should be migrated to use the scaffold.pl macro.

Upgrade Instructions

• First update the webwork2 and pg code. For this run

  > cd /opt/webwork/webwork2

  > git fetch origin

  > git checkout WeBWorK-2.19

  > git pull

  > cd /opt/webwork/pg

  > git fetch origin

  > git checkout PG-2.19

  > git pull

  Note: Will use the main branches after the release.

• Update the javascript and css assets for webwork2 and pg with

  > cd /opt/webwork/webwork2/htdocs

  > npm ci

  > cd /opt/webwork/pg/htdocs

  > npm ci

• The following perl packages will need to be installed (run bin/check_modules.pl to ensure you have all programs/modules)
  • Archive::Zip::SimpleZip (on Ubuntu install from cpan)
  • File::Copy::Recursive (on Ubuntu install libfile-copy-recursive-perl)
  • GD::Barcode::QRcode (on Ubuntu install libgd-barcode-perl)
  • MIME::Base32 (on Ubuntu install libmime-base32-perl)
  • SQL::Abstract (on Ubuntu install libsql-abstract-perl)
• The program inkscape is needed for conversion of svg to png for hardcopy. This is used indirectly by imagemagick's convert program. The imagemagick program may need special configuration for some operating systems to use inkscape for this. (On Ubuntu install the inkscape package with apt. No further configuration is needed.)
• Webwork2 now uses xelatex by default for PDF generation instead of pdflatex because of a need for general UTF8 support. (On Ubuntu install texlive-xetex. Also install texlive-lang-arabic. The latter package is only needed if you use the Hebrew themes, and if you want the check_latex script to work.)
• Compare any files in the /opt/webwork/webwork2/conf directory that have been copied from a .dist file to the updated distribution .dist file, and update as needed.
  • In particular make sure that the variable $admin_course_id is defined in site.conf.
  • Note that two factor authentication is enabled for all courses by default. This only affects signing in with a username and password on the login page, and not remote authentication methods. See the $twoFA variables in localOverrides.conf on how to configure two factor authentication.
  • If the setting for secrets in your webwork2.mojolicious.yml file is the same as that in the webwork2.mojolcious.dist.yml file, then make sure that you change it. That is now used to sign cookies, and would be a security vulnerability to use the default from the distribution.
• Restart the webwork2 server: >sudo systemctl restart webwork2
• If you use the webwork2 job queue, then that will also need to be restarted. Do that with: >sudo systemctl restart webwork2-job-queue
• You should update the modelCourse via: rsync -av /opt/webwork/webwork2/courses.dist/modelCourse/ /opt/webwork/courses/modelCourse/
• Upgrade the admin course by executing the upgrade_admin_db.pl script.
• Make sure to upgrade courses from the admin course to relegate changes to the database.